Gang rape has long been used as a weapon in India, both to punish women seen as violating cultural norms and as revenge for injuries committed by their families. It has become a more prominent issue now as there are more educated, modern women working and living more independent lives. We are seeing a brutal backlash against change by cultural conservatives.

A couple of years ago, the NYT ran an article about Hindu nationalists protesting the celebrating of Valentine’s Day in India by rioting at venues hosting events for singles and couples. They apparently felt that modern courtship had no place in India.

Part of the problem is that a lot of people view modern social mores as inherently Western and the infliction of an alien social system on their society. Combined with lingering resentment from the Imperial Era and you get everything you need for a violent, reactionary response to modernity. Its the Tariq Ramadan school of thought that states its imperialist to expect non-Western cultures to adopt Western ideas concerning humans rights, freedom, and how society should be organized.

I do not think it is all that much different from what we are seeing among our own Talibangelicals, actually, though the specific manifestations are somewhat different. They do not blow up abortion clinics and assassinate doctors in India.

I think that our reactionaries are a bit more careful in how to act because they usually know that there is a very good chance that the law is going to hit back hard. It doesn’t deter the most fanatical but the best way to deal with reactionaries is to subject them to the full force of the law. It might not change their minds but it will prevent many of them from acting out.

I also think that reactionaries lash out less when the change is seen as coming for from within the society than from outside society. The backlash to the societal changes in the 1960s and 1970s could have been a lot worse. This also might be wishful thinking on my part.

Indeed. Backlash against women’s rights exists in many places, in different forms.

Rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment are certainly manifestations that exist all over, though to different degrees. As some of my activist volunteering work is as a rape crisis counselor…they are certainly manifestations that are common in the US.

And on the other side, you find many people (in the US, no idea about India) who think that it must not really have been rape if the victim doesn’t physically resist, even though the victim may be doing so to avoid further injury.

i wouldn’t bet money on things changing anytime in the next century. india’s government is one of the most openly corrupt in the world, and their society one of the most openly mysogynist, so the prospect of the legal system doing anything soon is pretty damn low.

An ugly & brutal reminder that the War on Women isn’t restricted to US conservatives.

The woman, whose intestines were removed because of injuries caused by a metal rod used during the rape, has not been identified. She was flown to Singapore on Wednesday night after undergoing three operations at a local hospital.

Thanks, Robert Farley, for this post. It is interesting, isn’t it, to see how the image of the police changes from the first article (2011) to the second article (Dec. 2012). NYT, trying its best, in the first article, to bolster support for the establishment and being totally unable to do it by the end of this horrible episode.

For those interested in more about this, I would recommend this website: http://kafila.org/

Scroll down a couple of articles and you all will read a number of essays detailing this story and the protests and the responses to the protests by the police and the politicos.

What I don’t understand is, how and why did those rat bastard pricks of Indian officials who shipped her 1,500 miles out of the country, to Singapore, “for medical treatment,” get away with that? There is absolutely no medical reason to evacuate anyone with injuries and infections that severe, that far away. Did they think this whole thing would just go away if they whisked her out of the country?

Well, twitter rumors are already circulating that the poor girl was dead before the transfer–I am not sure whether the rat bastards thought that having the death announced outside of India might quieten the protests.

That’s not remotely comparable. India has first-rate hospitals, medical schools, and health care facilities (provided one can afford to use them), while any such facilities in Iraq were rendered inoperable by war and sanctions. Afghanistan has never had reliable tertiary-care surgical facilities. It is very possible to evacuate severely injured people to a higher level of care; it just makes no sense to bypass local sources of advanced care to do it.

This whole sickening thing has given us a remarkably unsubtle example of what we talk about when we talk about patriarchy. The Indian state deploys hundreds of police officers to attack those marching against rape culture, while it purports to remain helpless against rape culture itself.

I think it may. There has already been a growing and increasingly militant women’s movement that has specifically been targeting this kind of thing (which is not all that uncommon, though this was particularly brutal).

The events are fresh but the general climate has existed for a long time.

“Countries like India and Saudi Arabia fell to the bottom of TrustLaw’s list due to harsh restrictions on women’s mobility, high rates of infanticide and child marriage.”

I have a young female relative who traveled to India with her Japanese husband, intending to go to Nepal as well. She left mid-trip from India due to constant harassment. They travel regularly to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam staying at local homes they rent, so she’s no sheltered neophyte.

Actually, the first link is about an altogether separate gang rape than the one whose victim died yesterday. The one that brought about the mass protests occurred just two weeks ago, not in 2011. But it was just the most recent in a string of rapes that have been getting increasing attention from the Indian media and public.

Yes, I was also going to point out the problem with the first link, which was about a different rape entirely, but it also is a good article about the rape culture in general, especially the “town vs. country” angle, and provides background to these later, even more terrible events.

It’s like that horrifying story of the other Indian woman who was allowed to die in the Irish hospital because of an unresolved miscarriage. What is the matter with these–jeeze, I even hesitate to call them people–that they consider women so gauddam DISPOSABLE?

South Africa – 277,000 reported cases.
United States – more than 84,000 rape cases were reported.
India – reported a little more than 22,000 cases.

These round up the top 3. I would guess the ratio of reported vs. unreported cases is highest in India.

Also going to re-post my earlier comment in this thread:
It is interesting, isn’t it, to see how the image of the police changes from the first (linked in the OP) article (2011) to the second article (Dec. 2012). NYT, trying its best, in the first article, to bolster support for the establishment and being totally unable to do it by the end of this horrible episode.

For those interested in more about this, I would recommend this website: http://kafila.org/

I have no connection to this website whatsoever, but if anyone here is really interested in the issue–this is the best place to get information from academics, activists and activist academics.

Riiiiight! Just after a post pointing out that the US has the second highest rate of reported rapes in the world. Get a fucking clue, asshat, and save your puerile jingoism for Red State, Twitchy, or whichever rightard sewer you normally infest.

Christ almighty, if you’re going to hijack a horrific tragedy to whine about your personal hangups would you at least choose a stance not so comically fictitious as “feminists don’t care about rape”? There are more important things in the world than your hard-on for Marcotte, Jesus.

You have to admit, it’s flattering of Pancake Boy to assume that two individuals are “AWOL” if they are not participating in a LGM comment thread. Evidently this LGM comment thread is the most effective way to lobby for the cause of human rights in India so anyone choosing to lobby through their own media channels instead of commenting here is “AWOL”.

Feminism is outdated. The heavy lifting has already been done.
Women on the Supreme Court.
Women running for president.
Women at helms of industries
Women Governors

What passes for feminists are malcontents that pick some miniscule American issue, but ignore the plight of women overseas where the horrors actually occur.
They’re opportunistic assholes that wish to make a living off of their hatetred of men.
Sorry, but so obviously true.

What part of “the US has the second highest rate of reported rapes in the world” did you not understand, jackass? This is not a “miniscule American issue.” Nor is the fact that American women earn about 80% of what men do (even in the same jobs). It is also a fact that while women are 51% of the population, there are only 77 women serving as US Representatives and 17 as Senators. Hardly sounds like “you have come a long way, baby,” to me. Much more like baby steps toward equality.